Things That Cause Strife

It's June 1st.

In two days, my mother and my siblings will be arriving to the Philippines. In a few weeks, my sophomore year of college will have started. That means that I'll get to meet new freshmen, new professors and be challenged by new subjects. 
    Every time a new month starts, I feel like it's my chance to start anew. This month, one of my 'personality' goals is to be less irritated by little things. 

Here is a list of ten things that cause me strife. 


          Things That Cause Strife

1. Flaky Internet connection.
2. The other queue moving faster.
3. Forgetting to put the lid on cookie jars and finding ants inside.
4. People who don't drain the water from inside the soap dish. 
5. Losing important papers that I placed between pages of books.
6. Things forgotten on "to do" list.
7. Spending a lot of money for a drink that wasn't even good. 
8. People who can't act and don't really seem to have any talent are getting famous on TV because of their looks. 
9. Food I ordered taking too long. 
10. No toilet paper in the bathroom.


Now, who wouldn't be frustrated by these things, yeah? It's so easy to yell out in anger and just let my mouth say whatever that it wants to say. It doesn't matter whether I'd be blaming people, asking them, "Did someone play bongos on your head when you were a baby, or are you just really dumb?" Or start kicking things and pushing people aggressively, I just need to let off my steam. 
However, according to the Bible, on Proverbs 17:14, to be precise, it says, 

The beginning of strife is like letting out water, so quit before the quarrel breaks out.

So there you have it. I need to quit. A quarrel is like a built up pressure inside a dam, yeah? And if I start to react, it's like a leak in the dam. If I don't want all that water to eventually burst, I need to keep my mouth shut and not get affected. 

Now for some extra news. 

I'm going to start to read 1 book from the BBC Big Read list and 1 Christian book per month and write a blog about them. For June, the books that I have chosen are Crazy Love by Francis Chan and Emma by Jane Austen. Let's see how this goes. I love Francis Chan, and I dislike most of Jane Austen's work. But I will be updating the blog when I finish these books, if not earlier. I will be sharing my favorite thing about it, or what I enjoyed, liked or disliked and my favorite quotes from the books. Hopefully, I will be consistent in blogging now! 

Until next time. Peace and love 

xx,

A 

Needing a HARD PUSH

           Last week, I saw a film called 'Miracle.' It was shown in one of our leadership classes. For those who haven't seen the movie, it's about the 1980 U.S. men's ice hockey team led by an overbearing coach who eventually led them to an Olympic gold medal. A question was asked by our professor about whether we would like to work under someone like Coach Brooks. After giving it a lot of thought, this is my answer.

            For me, I would love to work with someone like Coach Herb Brooks. In my opinion, he had the perfect ability to push people to their limits and make them work the hardest they've ever done. There is a book I read called ‘Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother’ and it talks about the extreme parenting of a Chinese woman. She pushed her daughters to study extremely hard, and it got to the point where her daughters would be screaming ‘I hate you!’ at her. However, their hard work paid off since both her daughters became accomplished musicians and ended up going to prestigious schools. I saw a bit of tiger parenting in Coach Brooks. Now, some people might think that his coaching method was too extreme, but I beg to disagree. His coaching method was exactly right. We all know that his primary temperament is a doer, and in the end, his goals were what drove him to be quite harsh. He was driven to win, to beat the Russians and to be the best. He merely strived to invoke all of that to the guys in his team.

            Coach Brooks was a great coach. As a leader, he probably wasn’t the best; he was too insensitive, too harsh, too demanding, etc. but sports is different. Nobody goes to participate in the Olympics just for fun or for experience. No, if they were to compete, it was because they wanted to win. They wanted to stand on a podium in front of thousands of people wearing a gold medal around their necks. If you had that dream, or simply any dream that you are simply just dying to achieve, Coach Brooks was the right coach. I have a dream for myself. I want to accomplish something, but I admit that at times I am too laissez-faire. I know I can do something, so I don’t work hard for it. In the end, my accomplished work is not of a good quality, I’m being surpassed by others who have simply worked harder. I want to push myself, so I would want to work under Coach Brooks. I know for a fact that if he was coaching me, I would be successful. At times, I may hate him, but in the end, he will get me to a place where I had only dreamed of going. He had his severe methods that pressed his players to be the best they can be. He had wise lessons to teach them, and he was persistent in making them accomplish the goals that they may not know that want to achieve yet. Coach Brooks had passion, strength and courage to undertake the difficult and triumph in it. In my opinion, he is the epitome of a truly great coach, which is why I would love to work under somebody like him. 

Ramblings

So the other night I was listening to a song by James Vincent McMorrow called Higher Love. It's such a beautiful song with really good lyrics and I was inspired to write about how I was feeling at the time. Then I found some other ramblings I typed on my phone about a month or so ago and I joined them together. So here you go.

Ramblings of an insomniac

Sometimes I don't know what to do. God, let me feel Your love. I just need everything to be real. What will it take for me to stop being so inconsistent?If I think about it, I get sad. Everything I'm going through, everything that's in my mind seems so jumbled up. Right now I don't even know if I'm making much sense, but I'm just confused. Deep down, I know what I want and all I want is more of You. I just desperately need You, but my mind and my heart is so messy that I keep forgetting what I'm supposed to want, what I need.Bring me to higher love. Higher love for You.Let me feel this overpowering love that You have for me. I want to drown. Let me drown in Your love. To be empty yet to feel so full. You're all I want to need. You're all I want to see.But I'm not like this. Hold me down, don't let me go. I'm tired of freedom that kept me in chains. I'm running to leave it behind. I want to leave it all behind.You carry the flame. I'll follow You, follow Your light. I want to do it now.I want to do that right now. 

Words.

Isn’t it weird that sometimes the people you love the most are the ones who give you the least bit of encouragement? It’s a bit off, wouldn’t you say?

The Bible has so many passages that talks about how we ought to encourage one another, lift each other up. But I wonder sometimes, how come at times it’s my closest Christian friends who insult me worse than my non-believer friends? In Ephesians 4:29, the Bible says “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”

Our words should be gracious. Fresh and offering help to others grow as Christians. I roll my eyes at the quote 'words can never hurt me.' I beg to differ. True, words aren’t knives; they can’t hurt you, literally. They do hurt, though. Sometimes insults are like little pokes, you can shrug them off. But when the pokes keep coming, sooner or later you’ll end up with a bruise until it takes only a tiny poke for you to react violently. So friends, watch your talk! Let your good words communicate grace to those who hear them. Let’s build each other up.

I haven’t updated in a while, but now that it’s summer break in the Philippines, I have more free time. School is out, finals week is over, I can now put my feet up and work on getting rid of these dark circles under my eyes. Whew! However, not every day is all fun and games. Lately I’ve been volunteering with a bunch of friends to an area here in Quezon City called Bayoran. We’ve been working with some youth and kids who lost their houses in a fire. The place is an urban poor community and we call the whole thing ‘Friday Knights Exchange.’ The whole thing is just us sharing God’s love to people who normally wouldn’t have access to it. I’ve been put in charge of the children’s activities. I haven’t been able to take my camera to get photos yet, but I will soon. All the children are adorable.

Well, this is quite short. Hopefully I’ll be able to update better now that I’m less busy with things. Thanks for all your prayers and support.

Much love,

Andrea

1 Year Anniversary

   Last year, I arrived in the Philippines ready to begin a new adventure. Independent life, college, new-ish country, unfamiliar-ish people. It's exactly one year later, and I feel like the kid who survived her first time in a roller coaster ride she was terrified of! It's a good feeling, by the way.

   2012 brought me a whole lot of challenges. God also brought me the strength that I needed to overcome them. He gave me amazing people to support me, back me up in prayers and in whatever else that I needed. 2012 has indeed been a year of fruitfulness and blessing. 

   So much has happened to me in my one year stay in the Philippines. In the beginning, I was terrified of leaving my family, my comfortable life, and my familiar home. Leaving was incredibly painful, especially since I had just started making really good friends in the church. It was incredibly hard to smile inside everyday, for I felt that I was alone. You know what I'm talking about. New country, new people. Having to start over and get people to understand you and all your onion layers. But I realized, my whole life has been a journey of moving. I was born to be a nomad. 

(Just a random quote inserted here.) 

   Anyways, this blog, apparently, is my first for this year. This year is going to bring me so much more, I just know it. I attended this camp last December, and one speaker kept saying, "2013 is your dream waiting to happen." 

   Well, what is my dream waiting to happen? I guess I have to search my heart to find out. 

   

Works Well

Hi. I wave at him.
He waves back.
I scoot over. What's your name?
The boy does not reply.
I shout in his ear.
He just smiles.
He makes actions with his hands.
I watch,
Mesmerized.
He points at his ear.
And he shakes his head.
I think he says that his ears don't work well.
That's okay.
A big boy comes.
He laughs and says mean things.
My new friend just smiles.
He points at his ear.
And he shakes his head.
The big boy keeps laughing.
He keeps calling my friend mean words.
His ears don't work well, I say.
The boy pushes my friend.
He falls on the ground.
His knee has blood in it.
I watch,
Mesmerized.
I help him up.
I turn to my friend.
And I point to the bully.
I point at my head.
And I shake my head.
The big boy's head don't work well.
That's what I mean.
My friend smiles.
He points at my chest.
Then he nods his head.
I think he says my heart works well.

A Poem

SOUNDS OF TERROR 

The sound of their voices, loud and clear

Dear God, I pray, as I cringe in fear,

Some days they hurt me, some days they just sneer

Some days they push me and call me queer.

The sound of their footsteps, oh so close,

Of terror I don’t need another dose.

I can hear them walking, and when they broke my nose,

Just to silence their footsteps I wanna break their toes.

The sound of their laughter makes me want to die

No other sound on earth can make me cry.

They chuckle and snigger and shove me that’s why

I jumped off the building and bid them goodbye.

The sound of their shock came in different ways

There was screaming and swearing and other dismays

But worse were the sobs and wails cause by the face

That will haunt them all of their days.